Bacalao is virtually synonymous with Lent and features in Lenten dishes throughout the Christian world. It plays an important role in Mexico’s “cocina cuaresmeña”, and while badly prepared bacalao is a true penance, it can be a very delicious vehicle for many indigenous Mexican ingredients.

Sopa de habas, or broad bean soup, makes a regular appearance in Mexican homes and restaurants during the Lenten or “La Cuaresma” season, and yet cannot be considered an ancestral or indigenous dish, as broad beans originated not in the Americas but in North Africa as well as Southeast Asia.

Lent may bring to mind pictures of fasting, penitence, abstinence and “giving up” a food which you particularly enjoy, but it is also an opportunity to explore the wealth of vegetable and fish dishes which make up “la cocina cuaresmeña” or Lenten cooking of Mexico.

The atoles are a large family of ancient drinks, with countless variations, some of them totally pre-Hispanic, others slowly developed since the 16th century by the addition of some of the many foreign ingredients which found their way into the indigenous larder after the Spanish conquest.

UNESCO has never included food and cooking in its “intangible cultural heritage” awards, but on 16 November 2010, it bestowed this honour upon Mexican Cuisine, a decision which was greeted with tremendous personal and national excitement and pride.

An adobo starts off as a marinade and from there often graduates to being a sauce. The name comes from the Spanish “adobar”, which has several meanings, among them “to marinate, pickle or cure” but more importantly, “to stew”, all verbs which illustrate an adobo’s versatility very nicely.

Vanilla is a shy and gentle spice. There is nothing brash or flamboyant about it, and yet its power is great, with a delicately warm, sweet flavour and scent which are deeply evocative, almost hypnotic.

“La Casa Azul" was the home of Mexican painter, Frida Kahlo, and her husband, Diego Rivera. Diego's daughter, Guadalupe, once lived with them and Frida’s Fiestas is Guadalupe’s account of her life there – a time when she “learned to see the world through the way Frida and Diego lived”.

Faintly sweet, decidedly starchy, inedible raw, rich and voluptuous when cooked, a fruit which is eaten as a vegetable and can be ground into a flour to make bread and turnovers – this is “plátano macho”, the “male banana” of Mexico.

Pico de Gallo translates as cockerel’s beak for some unfathomable reason and is a standard salsa which appears on the table in a restaurant at the beginning of a meal, to be eaten with “totopos” or tortilla chips while perusing the menu or waiting for the rest of the meal to arrive.